


Know

by ergo_existence



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Blood Gulch Chronicles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 06:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2681954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ergo_existence/pseuds/ergo_existence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tip of your tongue. He knows it. Knows it inside out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Know

**Author's Note:**

> [This is the music that accompanied me on this short piecemeal story.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCNn8_Cnl-0)

The brazen sun of Blood Gulch beats on, and on, and it pierces the roof of Red Base, and Sarge's gleaming armour down below, and it's burning Simmons' sensitive skin (Grif knows, Grif knows all the little qualities about Simmons, like how he complains there's no Command-issued sunscreen, and how there wasn't a duster shipped off to them for four weeks after their first arrival to Blood Gulch, and when he's seething his fingers won't stop twiddling, and sometimes at nighttime Simmons will stand in the bathroom with his arms crossed, leant against the wall, tongue between his teeth—Grif knows because one time he had to pee).

It's a good day, actually. It's not half bad, and that's a certified _amazing_ endorsement from Dexter Grif, because if there's one thing Grif loves it's a fair ceasefire. So they're out of armour, naturally. It's not like his cooling system is any state to _work,_ so the everyday heat isn't all that intimidating for him.

He's planning on dragging it out long enough, just to catch Simmons' exasperated reaction and nigh-screeching _why didn't you tell me sooner so I could fix it?_ Oh, no, he reconsiders: he knows Simmons better than that. It'll be a _low_ , attempt-at-menacing _you should've told me sooner_. Grif likes that tone. Maybe because it’s never too harsh.

The thing about Simmons' skin is it's not even your usual culprit for a redhead; it's this tanned sorta honey colour that's like the beaches in Hawaii, and he's got dark brown eyes that turn golden in light (and Grif is almost captivated every time before he remembers to look away in disgust, it's  _Simmons_ ) but his hair's an orange mess, sitting not neatly at all in a mop on his head that fits inside his helmet _just_. Simmons' says the perk is, he never really has helmet hair.

Grif contests this claim and says he has helmet hair _all the time_. So.

He knows a lot about Simmons, come to think of it—that's what proximity and relentless struggle with authority does to you (read: Simmons and his undying need to prove himself, and his tenacity to engage Grif in tussles over minor things to please Sarge. Then again, he very possibly just gets off on it. Grif doesn't mind. The longer you argue, the longer it is before you do work).

He just wonders how much Simmons knows about _him_. Is he curious often? If he were to be as straightforward as Tucker—does Simmons wonder how big is _dick_ is? It’s a bit more crude. Were they anything _but_.

Of course his eyes are trained on Simmons then, and he remembers his own are a funny kind of hazel—his sister used to say they changed colours, but he never paid much attention. A mish-mash of rust and a greeny kind of colour found in tiles in the shopping centre all the way back home, that’s what they are, and they’re all right.

Simmons turns his perky, annoying nose—there’s this way he holds his chin when he’s going to look at Grif, it’s like he _knows_ they’re on the same playing field, it’s just he has these delusions of _I know better than you_. And he doesn’t. Really. Simmons would be lost without Grif.

“What are you _staring_ at? Do you have gum? Are you going to try and do what you did _last_ time with it? You know I had to cut it out of my hair. I did _not_ enjoy that,” Simmons quickly says, managing to hold a conversation all by himself.

Grif wipes his nose and says in reply, with a good three second pause to get on Simmons’ nerves, “I don’t know, do you want me to answer or do you wanna just carry on talking to yourself? Sounds like you can fire off enough words on your own.”

He huffs, then, of course—that’s Simmons, and he scratches his knee that’s hanging off the edge, a normally precarious spot for any other day. But what days do they have to go out here? So they’re making the best of their time.

“You’re still staring.”

A sarcastic laugh makes its way up Grif’s chest, out of his mouth, and he’s sure he’s looking at Simmons, from his well-set shoulders and somewhat nicely shaped but quite lean torso, Command-supplied pants that were shapeless but Grif knew the curve of his calves, the thin thighs from picture-perfect memory ( _all by happenstance, really, he’s not_ intimately _acquainted with them_ ).

There’s a subtle blush creeping on Simmons’ face and he looks away. Grif doesn’t. It’s rare to catch these. It’s off the tip of his tongue but there’s a nerdy analogy to go with that, typical of Simmons. Imprinting those sorts of things into Grif’s consciousness but missing it by an inch in the act of recalling. He ensures not to miss this.

Muttering from Sarge emanates up to them, a distinctly huckleberry chorus that Grif isn’t deciphering, but it’s a setting to the scene, it’s a permanency, it’s a knowledge Sarge is there dittering away (with a soundtrack of a spanner and Lopez, at times, offering advice in Spanish, simultaneously proving the fact robots are capable of sarcasm) and Grif is utterly sick of it.

It’s not half bad.

Simmons reaches up with his right arm to rest his hand over his shoulder, and Grif inspects the somehow-clean nails (Grif’s surely aren’t and he’s almost powered to go do some scrubbing, god fucking _forbid_ ), the bony fingers, the sun spot dotted here and there. He knows Simmons can knit.

He turns then, infinitesimally but Grif detects it, and Simmons says so, “It’s rude.”

“When have I shown manners, Simmons?” Grif snorts. If he had a dinner table in front of him with silver service and a tablecloth, he’d use it to dab his chin, he’d lift up his legs to rest them gently beside his plate.

He wishes for a tablecloth. But then, if he were back home—if he weren’t the one-man draft—he wouldn’t have the honour to meet Richard Simmons. What a drab deliberation.

“I’m bilingual,” he says, out of nowhere, and it’s like he’s trying to get Simmons’ attention, he’s trying to come up with all sorts of things to litter the steady quiet and lick of the midday triumph of the sun, and so he hums and considers if it’s something borderline inappropriate. Considers for an appropriate length. Abandons it. He’s Dexter Grif. He’s inappropriate.

“You are?” There’s a succession of four blinks and long eyelashes flickering and they’re only visible when he’s right beside him, they’re ginger.

“ _Aloha,_ ” he says, and Simmons laughs meanly at him—a proper laugh, too, not a derisive or caustic one, it’s full and there’s no weight of armour bearing him down.

“What a fucking charm.”

Grif _beams_ , shit, put that on the list of things he was never supposed to do except for at his sister’s gymnastics competitions; if there’s one thing Grif’s a sucker for, it’s the direct attention of Simmons.

It’s a bad habit. But.

“And I can do handstands. My sister taught me.”

Simmons is looking back at him and he hasn’t said anything yet.

“Come on. What’dya know about me, Simmons?”

He pretends to think for a second, eyes cast upwards like they can _see_ his brain and Grif’s an inch off calling him stupid, then he meets his gaze, says, he _says_ , “I know you’re lazy, but that’s easy.”

Grif kicks a leg up and twists an arm around it, sets on an act of boredom he ought to have established sooner. Can’t seem _too_ keen.

“You are _incredibly_ shitty with cleaning your guns. Or general upkeep. Or listening to orders. I mean you’re the worst soldier I’ve ever met.”

Grif’s smiling. It’s unbelievable.

“And your eyes change colour. Sometimes you smile and it’s okay, I guess. I mean. Your two bottom teeth are crooked and I wonder who your family dentist was. Did you have braces? Because it sure looks like you didn’t,” he continues, and the ‘Simmons can hold a conversation just fine by himself’ theory is corroborated further, and his words are flowing more quickly but they’re all clear to Grif.

He coughs. Clears his throat. Blinks six times.

“I had appointments but I _always_ missed them,” Grif says, filling the gap Simmons has so dutifully left open. Simmons groans and lets his shoulders roll briefly, his arms returning to his sides.

His eyes catch a ray of sunlight and there’s golden specks alive, right there, where it hits. Grif doesn’t say anything.

He’s heard about the shuttles that go as close to the sun as physically possible without burning up completely. The other softer stars that have themselves knitted in the fabric of space. If they get out of this, Grif puts it amongst all the Simmons-reserved room in his head to take him on one of those ships. For science.

Simmons would approve.

“The receptionist would’ve had a nightmare,” Simmons says in a low voice, not disapproving, just musing: unusual for Grif’s oft-anxious partner-of-a-kind.

“Eh. Not my problem. I’m sure they were running late anyway.”

“It’s people like you that _make_ them late. Don’t you see? It’s a circle!”

Grif’s grinning again and he’s not sure what to do with himself. He’s never been so _struck_. What does he call it?

He knows _Simmons_ would know. He’s into all genres of books he can get his grabby geeky hands on.

Because he’s interested in the arch of Simmons’ cheekbone—and this is all for the discovery of knowledge, so, Grif is rightly justified—he brings up a hand to lightly drag across Simmons’ cheek, and he does, and it’s softer than he imagined except for the jutting of bone. He watches Simmons blink twice. Wide eyed, lips pursing in suspicion.

Grif smiles, neck tilted then, smile hanging off his lips like it’s going to be a casual thing now, scowls _are out_ this season, the bubble in his stomach is in vogue.

And so he sets the whole theme of _change_ and _learning_ :

He’s licking his lips and he dips in, it’s easier than he thinks and he realises it’s a tumble and it’s nothing so as active as he imagined. It’s not quite like breathing, nothing as such a big claim as that, but Simmons fits. Tenderly, almost, not as rough as he’d anticipate Simmons to be but so they were, they _were_. What was underneath.

He pulls back to fit in a flirty grin, and he decides that, in fact, smiles are not something to be so afraid of where concerned with Simmons.

He mentions something about learning Gaelic and Grif laughs because that’s a dead language. Simmons protests otherwise, it’s still alive and truly well—a whole colony and three others speak it as a first language.

Grif kisses him again. A hand cups his hip and he lets his head loll on Simmons’ shoulder, nicely, as though it was never supposed to be alien.

He says, “So what about Latin?”

Sarge’s cusses and yells at the Warthog is the orchestra set out specially for them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, as always. You wonders!


End file.
